A gentleman’s game? Not quite!

If you are as exasperated by the Indian-Australian cricketing “controversies”, read The Art of Sledging



The Art of Sledging
J. Harold
Allen & Unwin
$19.95

If the constant media coverage and penalizing by the cricketing boards of the on-field sledging by Indian and Australian teams has you yelling, “Oh get over and it get on with the game, lads,” The Art of Sledging is the book for you.

Set to release on November 7, perfectly timed for Australia’s current tour of India, the book celebrates, and more importantly, recognises sledging, as a vital part of the game. As the author J. Harold notes in his introduction, “Ruthless insults and brutal replies are essential in any worthy cricket match.”

I am all against racism, but frankly “monkey” seems quite tame compared to the verdant history of sledging Harold builds up in his book. From race, to relatives and ancestors, to the cricketer’s appearance, cricketing sledges have not been shy of bringing up any issue, as long as it crumbles the opposition.

A few examples quoted by Harold:

Aussie captain Bobby Simpson to his bowler, Garth McKenzie about a bespectacled Geoffrey Boycott –

“Hey Garth, look at this four-eyed f**cker. He can’t f***king bat. Knock those f***king glasses off him straight away!”

The crowd to Inzamam Ul Haq during an Indo-Pak match:

“Mota Aloo”

Viv Rickards to one of the spectators in an English crowd that was throwing racist comments at him:

“I may be black, but I know who my parents are.”

And my favourite, and quite a lesson to contemporary crickets who go complaining every time there is a tiff on the field –

Upon English captain Douglas Jardine’s complaint about an Australian player’s remark, Aussie captain Bill Woodfull reprimanded his team thus:

“Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?”

This kind of psychological warfare of sledging has been part of the game right since the beginning—in fact the very pace of cricket has nurtured the culture of sledging, says Harold. Two batsmen must face 10 rivals on field, and a bowling spell of several overs is plenty of time for a continuing conversation consisting of taunts and counter-remarks.

And it is sledging that makes cricket as much a game of wit and nerves, as of skills and strength. Harold, a Melbourne-based advertising creative director, draws together some of the finest one-liners from the time of, who he calls the ‘Grandfather of Sledging’, English batsman, W.G. Grace, to Matthew Hayden’s remark just earlier this year about Harbhajan Singh on a radio station (Hayden called Bhajji a “little obnoxious weed”).

The book is very entertaining—I was bursting in peels of laughter through the afternoon it took to read through it. Harold also manages to provide the whole context of every sledging remark—the who, when, where, why, how—to create a real feel and sense of what happened.

While some comments in the book, are verifiable, being made immortal on pitch mikes, Harold admits, there are a few that have just become part of folklore. He provides a cross section of the crudest and wittiest remarks—on the field, from the crowds and even from the commentary box and cricketer biographies. Some of the best sledges are not even mouthed. A classic example that Harold cites, is from our favourite cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar.

Less than 18-years old himself at the time, Tendulkar had smashed younger Pakistani bowlers with sixes. Incensed, Abdul Qadir came on to bowl with, “Why are you hitting kids? Try and hit me.” If you have watched Sachin play long enough, you should know what he did—he hit 4 sixes in Qadir’s over.

Harold’s collection hardly claims to be an exhaustive list—every cricket fan will have their own favourite sledging moment, which is probably not in the book. What The Art of Sledging does accomplish, is make the reader see, that after all, cricket is just a game.

And while there is of course a fine line between a sledge intended to unnerve the opposition, and a truly offensive comment intended to humiliate a person or the whole community—I think on field and off field remarks by cricketers should be taken with a pinch of salt. Just as technology like ‘hawk eye’ and ‘third umpire’ take away from the sense of chance and luck from the game, so does excessive cricketing correctness and codes of behaviour, take away from the spirit of our favourite sport.

The Art of Sledging, thus is essential reading for every cricketing fan—and even more so for the haughty cricketing boards, and ‘holier than thou’ players. As Gen-Y says, “Take a chill pill yaar!”